Fantasia Retro 2024
Animation buffs might end up appreciating and loving this oddity by Canadian filmmaker and animator Gerald Potterton based mainly on how it was conceived. On its own, “Tiki Tiki” is a gigantic mess of a movie that tries to fit a square peg in to a circle hole. At seventy minutes, Potterton’s film is packed with about forty minutes of filler. Most of the filler is comprised of random scenes of people dressed as monkeys, and nigh endless musical numbers. And what kind of musical numbers per se? It’s mostly funk and soul music, which when viewed in context, is absolutely awkward.
Most times Potterton almost seems to forget that this is kind of an animated movie pitting his characters as back drops for an incredibly dull story about pirates and Monchhichis.
According to the back story of “Tiki Tiki,” American distributors bought a pirate film for children named “Aybolit-66,” which was shot in “live-action” in Russia. Unsure on how to market it in the US, they turned to Gérald Potterton (Heavy Metal), who made the unusual decision to create animated sequences aimed at lending more coherency to the live action movie. In the process, he opts to create an incoherent narrative based around a monkey executive who hires a motorcycle riding chimp to build a new movie called “Tiki Tiki.”
Unsure about his vision, the monkey takes the studio head on a wild ride to see his vision unfold in live action a la “Mr. Peabody.” The movie mixes Gilliam-esque one dimensional back drops, hand drawn animation, and live action to build this bizarre amalgam. There’s also the fact that the monkey studio executive is voiced by none other than Jean Shepherd, and King Kong who makes a surprise appearance holding a very naked Fay Wraye; “Tiki Tiki” almost always seems to be interested in how bizarre it can get before audiences flinch and look away.
The whole messaging of the film is hazy as well, as most of the animation is adult oriented, while the live action Is centered on a very G rated movie. I wish I loved “Tiki Tiki” but I at least respected what Gerald Potterton was attempting to do with it.
This year the Fantasia International Film Festival runs in Montreal from July 18th to August 4th.